Digital music has become readily available due in part to the development of consumer level technology that has allowed people to listen to digital music on a personal audio device. The consumer's increasing preference for digital audio has also resulted in the integration of personal audio devices into PDAs, cellular phones, and other mobile devices. The portability of these mobile devices has enabled people to take the music listening experience with them and outside of the home. People have become able to manage or play digital music, like digital music files or even Internet radio, in the home through the use of their computer or similar devices. Now there are many different ways to manage or play digital music, in addition to other digital content including digital video and photos, stimulated in many ways by high-speed Internet access at home, mobile broadband Internet access, and consumer demand for digital media.
Until recently, options for managing and playing digital audio in multiple different settings were severely limited. In 2005, Sonos offered for sale its first digital audio system that enabled people to, among many other things, access virtually unlimited sources of audio via one or more networked connected media players, dynamically group or ungroup media players upon command, wirelessly send the audio over a local network amongst media players, and play the digital audio out loud across multiple media players in synchrony. The Sonos system can be controlled by software applications running on network capable mobile devices and computers.
Given the growing consumer demand for digital media, there continues to be a need to develop consumer technology that revolutionizes the way people access and consume digital media.